Fenland Ramblers photo gallery & walks reports

Lulworth Cove & Durdle Door

What a great start to the holiday. It is perhaps too early on day one to say that I’ve just done the best walk of the holiday, but it will certainly be difficult to beat. I think that the pictures tell most of the story for me. It was 9&frac34; miles with 2300ft of ascent, almost all of which was on the return leg climbing up an down the chalk cliffs.

I started from the National Trust car park (free!) on South Down overlooking Ringstead Bay with views to Weymouth & Portland Bill off to the west. From here there was a fairly gentle downland walk to Lulworth Cove which, as ever, even this early in the season, was busy with day trippers. By now the sun had burnt through the early morning cloud and it had developed into a lovely day. Lunch was taken looking out on Lulworth Cove.

[It is impossible to capture it all in a single picture so I took some video to give a better idea of what it looks like. Sadly, uploading a 45mb file proved too difficult so you will just have to make do with stills.]

Suitable refreshed, I set off with the crowds for the hard part of the walk, heading up hill to view Durdle Door. From this point, I left the crowds behind to climb the chalk cliffs of Swyre Head & White Nothe (Nose). Although they were steep, the effort was rewarded with ever more impressive vistas. It is certainly a walk that I would recommend to anyone visiting this part of the country and I’m sorry that Karen & Barry couldn’t be here with me.